This is a continuation of the High Fiber post.﻿ With too many images for one entry (uploading gets sluggish), we pick up where we left off. I'm guessing that none of these artists uses the description "fiber artist." For that that reason they can use fiber and fabric without being pigeonholed. I've addressed the topic of creative identity before so for this post, no soap-boxing, just pictures of what I saw.

Lara Favaretto at Galeria Franco Noero, Torino; ABMB

Detail below shows you exactly what you're looking at on the floor

Ry Rocklen at Annet Gelin Gallery, Amsterdam; ABMB

Yes, it's a tiled futon, replete with grout between the tiles. And you thought regular futons were uncomfortable

Detail below

Liza Lou at L&M Arts, New York; ABMB

The glass beads are not strung but placed, like tesserae in a mosaic. Here, in a prayer rug format, Lou has used a South African palette (she divides her time between LA and South Africa)

Detail below

Ann Hamilton at Gemini G.E.L., New York; ABMB

Detail below of pleated fabric over paper.

Angela de la Cruz at Lisson Gallery, London

Every year this Spanish-born resident of London shows a deconstructed canvas. I like the chutzpah of her work.

Robert Rauschenberg silkscreen on paper and fabric from 1974, also at Gemini G.E.L.

You'd never dream of calling Rauschenberg a "fiber artist" yet much of his oeuvre involved cloth and fiber--from his famous painted quilt to his mohair goat to the many silkscreened fabric installations his did during his long career

Shannon Bool at Galerie Kadel Willborn, Karlsruhe, Germany; ABMB

The artist paints on silk, creating the visual suggestion that her brush strokes are hovering slightly above the surface

Sperone Westwater, Marianne Boesky, Jack Shainman and Victoria Miro are four galleries that focused in a big way on art with a textile sensibility, if not out-and-out textile work. Was that a conceptual decison? A decision for other reasons? Was it even intentional?

Lauren Di Cioccio at Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco; Aqua Art

DiCioccio has her finger on currency-based art and books, both created from or embellished with stitching. Talk about being on the money

Mikalene Thomas at Susanne Vielmetter, Culver City, California; ABMB

Like the Renaissance masters who depicted their sitters' wealth via consummate renditions of ermine and velvet, Thomas places her sitters in lush but kitschy settings in which fabric rule

Jackson's redition of Harriet Tubman, with burned wood, mother of pearl and taxidermy eyes, includes yarn worked as a dimensional painted line; detail below

Cal Lane at Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Art Miami

Real oil drum filigreed with a plasma torch

Sissi Special Projects via FaMa Gallery; Art Miami

I'm not a fan of blobular fiber constructions, but I'd be remiss if I didn't include at least one of the several I saw. This was the best of the bunch

Second view below

I feel the same way about the bike and car cozies crocheted by the one-name artist, Olek. But she had a presence in Miami, due to her indefatigable crocheting around town, and her crocheted room at Scope

Above: baby bike in Wynwood

Top: bike parked outside the Convention Center

Below: the car cozy parked in front of the Scope tent

Chiharu Shiota at Rotwand, Zurich; NADA

This work in cord struck a harmonic chord with a fluff of human hair in a plexi box, below, which I saw at ABMB

Unsure of artist and venue, but I think it's Gabriel de la Mora, who has work below

Coda

Having made the fiber-hair connection, I'm creating this separate section. Human hair and weave strands (real or fake, I'm not sure) put in multiple appearances. This was more than a coincidence. Mostly the individual strands functioned as drawn lines do, whether in space or flat on the page.

Heimo Zobernig at Anton Kern Gallery, New York; ABMB

Detail above

Full view below﻿

Katina Huston at Autobody Fine Art, Alameda, California; Aqua Art

The lacy filigree is "drawn" with short strokes

Detail below (photographed through glass)

Gabriel de la Mora at Galerie OMR, Mexico City; ABMB

You can't see the work inside the vitrine, but you can see it below, where individual long strands of human hair are knotted together to form an airy constellation

Alexandra Birken at BQ Galerie, Berlin; ABMB

A giant eyelash? No, silly, it's hair extensions attached to ski

Below: Walking around the work I came across these photographs of skeins and tangles of yarn, which pretty much brings us back to where we started

But the last word in this post goes to the work below. It's a coda to the coda: wire in the form of a braid, by Tunga at Galeria Millan, Sao Paolo; ABMB

6 comments:

WOW! (a pathetically trite word to describe these delectable offerings).By showing the distant views along with the details, you've given us a taste of the viewing experience-- the smile of surprise when you move in close and see how a piece was constructed. The pieces that really caught my eye--the Ry Rocklin tiled and folded futon; the Arlene Schechet (while I don't love this piece I find it appealing that it is ceramic masquerading as rope); of course El Anatsui (I can't imagine the numb and nicked fingers of his assistants endlessly folding the bits and pieces of metal). The hair drawings are wonderful but also have a little of a 'yuck' factor-- the pieces by Katina Huston and Heimo Zobernig are the best. Once again, thank you, thank you Joanne!

Pretty damned mind boggling - although not appealing to me for the most part. I can't imagine getting all these photos together into one post(s), Joanne. You have spun an incredible web by organizing this topic. Thank you!

Links

Artists Choose Artists

Artist Annell Livingston writes about my work for the new blog, Vasari 21, founded by Ann Landi. Click pic for info and a link

Recent Solo: "Silk Road"

"Joanne Mattera: The Silk Road Series" was at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont, New York, May-July. Some paintings are available for viewing at the gallery. Click pic for gallery info

Recent: August Geometry

More than just a summer show. Au-gust: adjective, respected and impressive. At the Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta. Click pic for info

Recent

I'm having a great year of exhibitions and catalogs. This volume, published by Space Gallery, Denver, on the occasion of the exhibition, "Pattern: Geometric|Organic," is viewable online and available for sale as a hard-copy volume. Click pic for exhibition info and a link to the catalog. That's my "Chromatic Geometry 29" on the cover

James Panero Reviews Doppler Shift

Writing in The New Criterion, Panero calls Doppler Shift "a smart group show, " noting the work of "artists who interest me most these days." There's a nice shout out to Mary Birmingham, the curator; to Mel Prest, who originated the concept; and to me, among others. Click pic for the review

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"Textility," curated by Mary Birmingham and myself for the Visual Art Center of New Jersey, Summit (where Birmingham is the chief curator), looked at contemporary painting, sculpture and work on paper in which textile elements were referenced or employed. The exhibition is over, but you can see this exhibition on line. Click on the links below to read and see more.

Review of Textility

Click pic to access review. Then click on page images to enlarge them for legibility

Stephen Haller: Remembering Morandi

When he was a young man, the New York art dealer Stephen Haller had a brief but life-changing friendship with Giorgio Morandi, who was nearing the end of his days. Click pic below for story.

Haller holding a photograph of himself with Morandi in the early Sixties. Click pic for story

Followers

My book, The Art of Encaustic Painting, was published by Watson-Guptill in 2001. It's the first commercially published book on contemporary encaustic. There are three sections: history, with images of the famed Greco-Egyptian Fayum portraits; a gallery of contemporary painting and sculpture (including the work of Jasper Johns, Kay WalkingStick, Heather Hutchison, Johannes Girardoni and myself), and technical information, including an interview with Michael Duffy, a conservator at the Museum of Modern Art.